Stomp Out Malaria Month

April is Stomp Out Malaria Month!! 

Before serving in Peace Corps Zambia, I was aware that malaria was a big problem in Africa, but I didn't know that it was the #1 killer in Africa. One of the most important things I am doing as a volunteer here is Zambia is educating people about the dangers of malaria.  Many people don't even know that mosquitos are the cause of malaria, but most of my villagers have had malaria at least one time in their life, if not many more times.  The symptoms of malaria vary, and often times symptoms are similar to those for the flu or the common cold.  When people are "paining", and I ask them what is wrong, the most likely response is that they have malaria...yes malaria that common here.

Below is a photograph of my bedroom in my hut, complete with my very own mosquito net - Safety First!!

Right now is the end of rainy season, also known as malaria season.  This year in my neck of the woods rainy season was long with amanzi sana (a lot of water) - literal breeding grounds for mosquitoes.

Below is a photograph of my sister's daughter Lisa pouring herself a drink of water...very serious that girl

One of the malaria projects I am working on in my catchment area is a Mosquito Net Study.  Peace Corps has partnered with the Center for Disease Control (CDC) to study the efficacy of two net manufacturers. We visit 25 houses in our catchment area every 6 months to fill out surveys on net use and the current condition of the net.  During the two year study, we randomly remove nets that are then sent to the CDC in Atlanta, Georgia for testing.  Being part of the net study not only spreads malaria awareness throughout my catchment area, but also allows me to enter more homes in my area, see really how people are living, and create stronger bonds with my community members.

How will you Stomp Out Malaria in 2013?????

Stomping Out Malaria in Africa is a Peace Corps initiative that uses strategic partnerships, targeted training Volunteers and intelligent use of information technology to support the local malaria prevention efforts of over 3,000 Volunteers in sub-Saharan Africa. For more information go to stompoutmalaria.org and follow Stomp activities at http://www.facebook.com/StompOutMalaria.

Hello everyone!  I know that it has been a really long time since I have updated my blog, so here it goes.
I have just recently past my six month mark here in Zambia, and it finally feels like home here.  I have been getting a lot of questions from people about what my life is like, the food I eat, etc.
My house, or hut I should say, is made of fired bricks, composed of very sandy soil, and then plastered over with mud. I am in the process of painting the walls in my kitchen and living room to seal the walls and also to brighten up the inside of my hut.
 My roof is made of grass called "isote" in Mambwe.  I have three small rooms in my house, which is a good size for just one person, and even though I think of myself as taller than I actually am, I am the perfect height to walk from room to room without hitting my head on the door frame.  Unfortunately, some volunteers here have had some bloody encounters with low door frames.
The floors are finished with a thin layer of cement. I also have five small windows, each about one foot square, which is actually a lot more windows than many other volunteers have.
My shower, called an "ulusasu", is a grass square structure located behind my hut where I take luxurious bucket baths.  My Toilet, called a "chimbusu", is temporary at the moment.  It is a latrine made of isote like my ulusasu, but I will have a second one built after the rains are finished.  My new chimbusu will be made of fired bricks and plastered with mud like my house or "nganda". So, soon enough I will have a guest toilet.  I know, I am living a very charmed life.
My "insaka" is currently under construction.  An insaka is traditionally the kitchen area and they vary in design depending on where you are in Zambia.  Mine is a circular structure made of bricks, and will have a grass roof.  Zambians spend most of their time out of doors and find it odd that Americans spend time in our huts, rather than in the blazing African sun.  As you approach a hut, it is customary to shout out "Odi?" or "Odi mukwai?", the latter of which is said with respect, because a village compound usually extends much farther than the house itself.  The response to such a question is "Calibu!", which means you are welcome.
My favorite part of my hut is my front porch, where I am often found sitting and cooking on my braiser.  My hut is located next door to my host family and on the main drag to the borehole, so there is quite a bit of village foot traffic in front of my house.  The view from my hut is "beautif." (Zambians cut off the end of many works especially those that end in -ful.  They also add -y to the end of many words. Bantu languages have a certain rhythm and tonality to them, so basically, it just sounds better that way.  Zambians also have difficulty distinguishing between "l" and "r".  For example, my host nephew's name is pronounced "Fa-lank-y."  It took me forever to realize that they were just saying, "Frank.") I can look out, when the maize is short and see Lake Chila, and just beyond the lake, up on a hill, Mbala is a mere six kilometers away.
For food I eat a lot of eggs, potatoes, bread, and fresh veg which I can buy in Mbala.  I also cook a lot of soya pieces and rice.  Insima or shima, is the staple food here.  Its alright but I'm not crazy about it, therefore I don't eat it that frequently.  Insima is sort of like a lump of really starchy mashed potatoes made out of maize meal, cassava meal, sorghum, millet or a mixture of these. It is eaten with everything at every meal, and the accompaniments are called relish. Relishes are usually tomato based, sometimes pounded ground nuts (peanuts) called "icisasa" are mixed with veg like mushrooms. To eat insima you take a small piece off with your right hand of course, very difficult for us lefties, and roll it around in your hand to make a ball.  Then you press your thumb into the center to create a spoon to scoop up the relish.
Tomatoes, onions, Chinese cabbage, spinach, rape (a leafy green), eggplant, impwa (like an eggplant except with a bitter aftertaste. I don't really like it much,"I am not used."), beans, mushrooms, ground nuts, bananas, lemons, cassava, and maize are almost always available at the local market. Right now guavas, mangoes, and avocados are in season in my neck of the woods.
That is all for now, but I am going to post some photos soon as I know a lot of you have been asking to see pics.  Until then, love to everyone and I miss you all.  Also, remember that there a cozy hut in Sub-Saharan African in which you are always welcome!
PS - Chipolopolo Boys Rock!!!!! For those of you that are unaware, Zambia, the underdogs, won the African Cup.  I was in Lusaka for this crazy event and it was so amazing to see a country so alive.  I have been in Zambia for some very historic moments thus far.  Between this and the election last fall, Zambia has had a stellar year. Lets keep this momentum flowing!

Greetings from Zambia

Hello! I have been in Zambia now for three weeks and so far so good. As I imagined internet access is very limited, but I do have a phone here with internet, but the coverage areas are spotty.

We are 2 weeks into training (out of a total of 11) in Chipembi, a small town in Central Province. I have been learning to speak Mambwe (a Bantu language), which is a language spoken by the Mambwe people who live in the northernmost part of Northern Province (NoPro) near Lake Tanganika, and close to the Tanzanian border.  From what I have heard NoPro is beautiful and lush, which is hard to imagine since now we are in the end of winter and everything is dusty and dormant. The rains will come in a few month, just after a few months of hot weather.  I can't wait until the rainy season. Apparently things are so different that its easy to get lost on the bush paths because things look so different that time of year.
We have already had a small taste of what village life will be like. We (when I say we I mean my training group of 36 RAP Trainees - Rappers) were split up into groups and sent off to visit current Rappers in their villages.  I went to Eastern Province and we swept off to experience village life right away.  We were sitting around in our host Jonathan's insaka (outdoor kitchen pavilion) as all of the villagers were coming to meet the flock of muzungus (accurately translated as Europeans, but really just means foreigners or white people), and were invited to be initiated by a group of women.  Just a side note about greetings in Zambia: all people are greeted separately, which can make for very long hello's and goodbyes. The three women in my group were totally up for it, not really knowing what we were in for.  Nicole, who is a volunteer who lives in a village near Jonathan was with us, so translated for us and explained a bit about what was going down.
We followed the woman to a small hut nearby. As we were walking they were all calling out "ayai-yai-yai-yai" which is an expression of happiness or excitement. About twenty to twenty five women were in the hut, each with 2 chitenges (a piece of fabric used for everything from a skirt, to a towel, to a baby sling), one used as a skirt, and the other folded up and tied around the waist to accentuate the hips while dancing.
The drumming began, and we were taken into the circle one by one and taught the dance - little did we know that this was just practice for the real thing.  We ended up being in that hot hut for over two and a half hours.  The dance, we were told, was 'taught' to women entering puberty and then preformed again before a woman is married.  The ritual dance is taught not only for woman to know what to do as a wife, but also how to please herself.  Woman empowerment, Zambian style...
As we left the hut, our legs all feeling like jello, Nicole told us all that it took her at least 5 months to be invited into a ceremony like that one.  We had truly experienced something really special.
Our time visiting Jonathan was wonderful. He was fluent in Nyanja, another local Bantu language, and had made really good connections with his counterparts and villagers.  The women in the village would have probably never invited us into their inner-sanctum had it not been for Jonathan.
That's all for now, hope everyone is doing well.

T minus one week and counting...

Lately time has been quite peculiar. I thought these last few weeks would rush by too quickly for me to notice but in fact, just the opposite has occurred. It seems as though time slows with every day that passes. It might also have something to do with how unbearably hazy, hot, and humid it was last week. Or not...
The last few days have been filled with organizing and purging obsolete belongings, spending quality time with people, and entertaining myself with the utterly trashy television I love. It has been nice to not feel as though I am rushed for this eminent change.
Fear not my friends, for I will be in Zambia soon enough - just after a brief stop in Philadelphia for my staging event.  In Philly I will be filling out additional paperwork, getting some last minute vaccinations, and meeting my cohorts. We will spend a day in Philly together and then off to Lusaka by way of Johannesburg.

Stay tuned, because I think this blog is about to get way more interesting...

Preparing for Zambia

I have recently accepted an invitation to serve in the Peace Corps in Zambia! Phew!! The application process has been a long one requiring an immense amount of patience, flexibility, and persistence. I can only imagine that this is the first of many hurdles I am going to throw myself over during the next two years serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV). My placement officer emailed me a few weeks ago on a Friday afternoon to set up yet another interview, this time over the phone, to get a better idea of what position(s) would suit me. This emailed contained familiar language basically saying, "Don't get excited just yet, you have merely slivered up one more stair." I quickly wrote back to set up a time, and then scoured the 'inter-webs' to learn all that I could about what this interview was all about and what types of questions I would be asked. I soon found out that the questions were very similar to those presented to me in my recruiting interview way back in June of last year. I geared myself up for the interview early on the following Monday morning, and began getting nervous as my placement officer didn't call me precisely at 9:30 am as I had expected. The interview went well and before I knew it, my placement officer was telling me about a position she thought would be a great fit for me. About 15 minutes later I hung up the phone and took a deep breath...I think was I was just offered an invitation?! But, after a year of waiting and taking baby steps to get to this point, I didn't believe it was true until I received an email saying that I need to check my online application for a status update. This has been one of the silliest parts of this process - I get an email telling me to check my online application which then tells me that a letter is on the way. Go figure!

So, I depart for my program August 1st, 2011 and am really excited about what the next two years have in store for me.  I will be serving as a Fish Culture Extension Agent for Peace Corps/Zambia's Rural Aquaculture Promotion (RAP) Project. This program was created to fulfill the Zambian Department of Fisheries' (DoF) request for human resource assistance. Now the preparation begins for this crazy adventure I've signed myself up for, and I couldn't be happier.